Connecting the World through Japanese: Learning Platform Founder - Goto Manabu

"RISING"

"Connecting the World through Japanese"
Learning Platform Founder - Goto Manabu

65-year-old Shoji Hiroyuki

has a part of the day to which he always looks forward.

He's here?

Here you are at last, my lord!

Forgive me, for the app was slow to load.

You are here safely now, my lord.

Shoji, who lives alone,

is an avid user of a video chat service

that connects Japanese seniors with international learners of the Japanese language.

His partner today is Turkey-based Reha Avci.

Inspired by a childhood love of anime,

he's been studying Japanese for 11 years.

His current fascination is Japan's late-medieval warring states period.

I see the Sanada clan flag fluttering behind you.

Yes, there's a slight breeze.

It looks great!

In his youth, Shoji's interest in other cultures

even saw him attend university in the UK.

But ever since then, he has enjoyed only limited opportunities

to meet people from outside Japan.

That changed a year ago when he found this service,

making conversations with people from around the world

a part of his daily routine.

Normally it's hard to make friends from overseas,

but this service lets you go beyond mere introductions and do just that.

That's the most fun part.

The city of Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture.

The chat service is run from this shared co-working space...

led by CEO and Founder, Goto Manabu.

I would feel a bit pretentious if I was dressed up in a proper suit.

We're not that kind of business,

so I think a casual vibe suits us better.

With many of the firm's 20 or so staff based in different regions of Japan,

most day-to-day meetings are conducted online.

Their service caters to a core demographic

combining Japanese seniors and overseas-based language learners.

Hello there.

Once matched with a conversational partner, each session lasts 25 minutes.

I'm from Indonesia. Good to meet you.

Good to meet you.

Of the 9,000 or so registered Japanese users,

some 70 percent are over 65,

and these retirees provide their time for free.

They are joined by some 20,000 language learners

in 158 countries and regions worldwide

who pay up to around 10 US dollars a month for unlimited access.

And for such overseas users,

it's the perfect platform to practice Japanese.

I ate breakfast at 7 a.m.

- Good evening.
- Good evening.

Good to see you again.

Thanks in advance for today.

In three years of using the service,

Tanaka Masako has enjoyed conversations with over 200 fellow users.

Today's counterpart is Taiwan-based Luo Miao-ju,

a weekly conversational partner for Tanaka.

Today, I did two pretty silly things.

What did you do?

On my way home from work, I decided to get a bento.

But just as I was ordering, I remembered I'd forgotten my purse!

Luo began studying Japanese after a trip to the country 10 years ago,

and since meeting Tanaka via the chat service,

her interest in Japanese culture has grown even stronger.

Every time we talk,

she teaches me so much about Japanese culture.

And I think that, if possible, after I retire,

I'd like to live in Japan even if only for a little while

and learn "Kamakura-bori" carving

and traditional "urushi" lacquer-work.

Through 45 years of marriage,

Tanaka and her husband raised two sons.

Look at this.

Even after our sons left home, the two of us kept up family customs.

Like throwing beans for "Setsubun."

And here he is, wearing an "oni" mask. I took this picture.

But, 13 years ago, husband Ryoji was diagnosed

with untreatable late-stage cancer.

He passed away at home six months later.

And ever since, Masako has lived alone.

With no supermarket or other shops nearby,

she gets most of her daily essentials delivered.

Against the backdrop of an aging society,

the number of elderly Japanese

who live alone has doubled in the last 20 years.

And with opportunities for outside social interaction

further hampered by the ongoing pandemic,

many seniors are finding themselves increasingly isolated.

My friends and I feel the social pressure.

They used to drop by when they were out for a walk,

and I'd walk back with them afterwards.

That doesn't happen anymore.

It does make me feel lonely sometimes.

Yes, it does.

But now, thanks to the online chat service,

she has lots of people to talk to in the form of users overseas.

Now I have friends in Taiwan, I wonder if I could travel there.

That's a kind of hope, or perhaps a dream that I've found lately.

You could definitely do that!

But please exercise every day!

- For fitness.
- Right, fitness.

I go for walks every morning.

With some light aerobics afterwards?

When I'm talking to people from Taiwan

and they tell me where they live,

these give me a sense of whereabouts that is.

And besides Taiwan,

Tanaka's interest in the backgrounds of other users

extends to in-depth research of their countries too.

Speaking to people from countries you have no ties to

and getting to know them,

you see the good in each other

and develop an affinity.

And you start to look out for what's going on in their country.

I think those kinds of connections are very important,

and they make me happy.

Using the service has also prompted Tanaka to take on new challenges...

like this computer course.

Today, she's learning how to make a calendar.

I want to make something that I can send to my grandchildren

or to other friends as a year-end gift.

That's my goal.

In all, the chat service has had a transformative impact

on Tanaka's everyday life.

For me,

it's like enjoyment and learning all mixed together.

And it's made me want to learn new things

and try taking on new challenges.

And with reluctance to go out due to the pandemic

adversely impacting the health of many seniors,

some local governments like Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture

have introduced Goto's service as a countermeasure.

Here they've been promoting the service for the last two years

via tools such as local newsletters.

The initiative has been led by local civil servant Ishida Daisuke.

A big topic these days is "social frailty"

in which seniors may be physically healthy and mentally alert,

but they lack social connections.

That can have significant negative impacts on health,

or rather, mental health.

And it's scientifically proven how feeling useful

or connected to others

are key drivers of the motivation to live an active life.

So, through this initiative,

we're trying to provide those things to local seniors.

Ishida is joined by representatives of Goto's firm

for an event at this local community center.

The limited-numbers gathering

is a meet-and-greet for local users of the chat service.

All those assembled have been enjoying the opportunity

for online cultural exchange with learners overseas.

As of next month, I'll have been using the service for a year.

I've done 1,400 sessions so far, and my target is 2,000.

I did eight sessions yesterday!

- In one day?
- Yep, four hours.

I just do one a day.

And attendees soon get down

to discussing their experiences of the service.

I always brush up on basic greetings in my partner's language.

Like "hello," "thanks," and "goodbye."

If I learn those, I can use them at the start and the end of the chat.

- It's a good icebreaker.
- It closes the distance.

And through events like this,

the chat service is building real-world connections as well as virtual ones.

It's great to feel some human warmth.

I'm so glad of events like this.

A chance for a chat and a nibble.

Before founding this company,

CEO Goto Manabu had taken up a graduate position with a major IT firm.

But he left after only a year to focus on his own business plan

at this local co-working space.

Here's where I used to sit before starting the business.

Right here.

I'd quit my job after only a year and had no business model, no clue.

I'd sit here with all these books, just chewing my pencil.

Every day was like that.

Here's where it all started.

Here's my mom and I.

Goto was raised by his single mother, Sakura.

My mom's a pretty unusual person.

Like a female version of the Joker.

She's pretty full-on.

I suppose all photographers are weird.

In her early 20s, she went to the US alone

to photograph circus performers.

Thinking back, that was pretty proactive of her.

And because his mother's work as a photographer frequently took her overseas,

Goto was left in the care of his grandparents.

I did feel lonely back then.

My dad wasn't around,

and my mom was working overseas.

And being different to all my friends

did give me kind of an inferiority complex.

As a college student,

he followed in his mother's footsteps by studying overseas.

And after graduation,

he followed this up with a one-year backpacking tour

of some 30 countries around the world.

Meeting all these people from different backgrounds

and realizing how much we had in common

was really quite a liberating experience for me.

One particularly impactful encounter came while studying in the US.

In America, I was interested in the civil rights movement.

Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks and so on.

And I met this white woman in her 80s

who'd lived through all that in the American south.

Hearing the history through her eyes about how her own perception changed

and learning about that past through the filter of her life

made me feel almost like I'd been there myself,

and that was a very meaningful and profound experience.

And it was that realization of how much there was to learn

from the rich experience of the older generation

that gave Goto the inspiration for his present service.

But not all overseas users treat language learning

and cultural exchange as a hobby.

These young people in Myanmar

are studying with the aim of finding work in Japan.

Instructor Than Toe Aung has been using the online chat service for a year.

I think meeting and talking with Japanese people is a great way to learn.

I write down things I'm not sure about,

and I often ask them for clarification.

I've learned a lot that way.

And Than Toe Aung is another regular conversational partner of Shoji Hiroyuki.

Relax, don't look so serious.

This is my normal face!

Is everybody well over there?

In fact, Than Toe Aung has been using the service

to enlist Shoji's help with teaching his students.

Shoji has been helping them prepare for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test,

which will have a big influence on their chances of finding work in Japan.

They say people who drink more coffee get fewer blemishes on their skin.

Do you understand "blemish"?

No, we don't.

It means a dark spot.

A dark spot?

Just a moment. I'll draw a picture.

Here we go.

It's not a mole, it's a blemish.

These black spots are blemishes.

Got it?

Yes, we got it.

Shoji has been giving them 50 minutes of instruction

every day for the past four months.

We're not Japanese, so there's a lot we don't understand,

pronunciation and so on.

Shoji-san is very kind

and he teaches us all sorts of things.

It's been a big help to the students.

And their Japanese is really improving.

They're all working so hard

under difficult circumstances to come and work in Japan.

When I see that, I want to help them out.

That's how I feel.

But it's not just about me teaching them.

How can I put it?

They've inspired me to make an effort in the same way as they are doing.

Ah, there we go.

- Thanks for today.
- Thank you.

Another of Shoji's regular chat partners is Chang Chia-hsuan.

A pharmacist at a hospital in Taipei,

she too dreams of working in Japan.

Dietary supplements and so on that are developed in Japan

have found a big fanbase in Taiwan.

So I think it would be really great

if I was able to experience working in pharmaceuticals in Japan.

I think that would be fantastic.

And recently Goto has launched a new service

aimed at helping such overseas learners find work in Japan.

The initiative aims to connect Japanese learners

with domestic firms searching for overseas talent.

This service aims to help our learners achieve their dreams in Japan.

It's called "Sewa-Katsu."

Designed to provide full support around visas and accommodation

as well as work placements,

the service takes its name from the Japanese word "sewa"

which here means "look after."

Until now, we'd focused on exchange,

but more and more overseas users told us

that in the future they'd like to work in Japan.

We started to think that we'd like to create a service to help them do that,

and we realized that offering a recruitment support service

was the most obvious way.

So that's what we decided to start with.

And the new service has already begun

to connect Japanese companies with overseas learners.

Good evening.

Taiwan-based pharmacist Chang has already secured interviews

with two Japanese firms.

And two days ahead of her first online interview,

staff from Goto's service are helping her prepare.

I have a question.

Should I introduce myself as soon as I enter the virtual meeting room?

I suppose that is something to think about in an online interview.

I think that introducing yourself will help to make a good impression.

The day of the first interview arrives.

It's with a pharmaceutical ingredient manufacturer.

What score would you give yourself out of 100 for your career to date?

Maybe 90?

To help me plan the way forward, I make a point of self-reflection.

And constantly set goals.

Thanks to the advance preparation,

Chang makes it through the one-hour interview.

Thank you for your time today.

And a month after her second interview,

she receives some welcome news.

So, one firm got in touch to say they'd like to offer you the job.

Congratulations.

She is set to receive a concrete job offer from one of the companies.

Yay!

It marks the scheme's first successful placement.

And Chang soon takes to the chat service to share the good news...

Firstly, I have something to tell you.

with none other than Shoji Hiroyuki.

I received a job offer in Japan.

Congratulations!

Thank you so much.

He really gave his all to help me when I asked for advice about the interviews.

But he said "You'll be absolutely fine."

He's such a warm person.

And by facilitating communication between users in Japan and overseas,

Goto Manabu's service is continuing to connect the world through Japanese.

It's about humanity.

To us, that's the basis of communication.

And within that, there is great value,

yet more humanity, warmth and consideration.

There are difficulties too,

but ultimately I'm someone who was helped by such exchanges,

and we aim to help more and more people.

To me, that's our job.